Cure for the Common City

The rain slowed enough last Thursday to screen our last film, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. We popped lots of corn and filled the house. Thanks to everyone for coming down, to the Toonseum for hosting us and to the Benedum Foundation for their support.

This summer we’ll be screening three great documentary films outdoors, in the courtyard of 947 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. The films include Please Vote for Me on July 13th, Gasland on July 19th, and The Pruitt-Igoe Myth on July 26th. Each of these films deal with themes of community engagement — and, in different ways, people who are challenged to make change in the places where they live.

This is where it all begins. In Wuhan, a city the size of London located in central China, director Weijun Chen documents an experiment in democracy at the Evergreen Primary School when a third grade class holds an election to select a Class Monitor. Three eight-year olds compete against each other for the coveted position, abetted and egged on by teachers and doting parents.

Join us for the first of our cityLIVE! Courtyard Series films at 947 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. The screening will begin right after the Cultural District’s downtown Gallery Crawl. Come for the crawl and stay for a movie and snacks.

When filmmaker Josh Fox received an unexpected offer of $100,000 for the natural gas drilling rights to his property in the Delaware River Basin, on the border of New York and Pennsylvania, he resisted the urge to accept. Instead, he set off on a cross-country journey to investigate the environmental risks of agreeing to the deal. The result is an urgent, cautionary, and sometimes darkly comic look at the largest domestic natural gas drilling campaign in history.

Join us for the second of our cityLIVE! courtyard series films at 947 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. Admission is free and open to the public and snacks will be served!

Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project’s residents.

Join us for the third of our cityLIVE! Courtyard Series films at 947 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. Admission is free and open to the public and snacks will be served!

Can algebra be an organizing principal for a civil rights movement? Robert Parris Moses thinks so! As the founder of the Alegbra Project, a revolutionary educational tool, Dr. Moses will show how mathematics can be used as an organizing tool to guarantee quality public school education for all students. As a result of his efforts, Dr. Moses received the Heinz Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for making math instruction available to children of all backgrounds.

Carey Harris, Executive Director of A+ Schools, an independent advocate for improvement in public education, will highlight local efforts and trends to provide opportunities to public school students and will also moderate the discussion, which we’ll kick off with some questions from Pittsburgh Public School students.

Be there or be square.

Missed this event? Catch the full video here or the short version here.

Pittsburgh is less diverse than 98 out of 100 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, according to the 2010 census …”whiter even than the Amish country around Lancaster, the Mormon population center of Salt Lake City, Midwest agrarian capitals such as Des Moines, Iowa, and far more isolated places like Boise, Idaho,” says Gary Rotstein of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. “How does a region built on immigration, albeit from previous centuries, come to have in 2011 such a small share of people of color?”

On October 18, cityLIVE! and Vibrant Pittsburgh will host a conversation between candidates D. Raja, Rich Fitzgerald and you, the audience, on the status of foreign born talent and diversity in the region. Economic development is at the heart of this discussion. For instance, 25% of U.S. business owners in the technology and engineering sector are foreign born, as are the owners of 24% of patent applications filed. Moderated by Melanie Harrington, CEO of Vibrant Pittsburgh, we will hear how our future leaders plan to tackle these issues in their future role as Allegheny County Executive.

This is an important conversation. Be there, or be really square.

Missed this event? Catch the full video here or the short version here.

Have you ever thought you’d like to ride your bike to work, but it seems too dangerous? Do you wonder what life would be like if your children could walk to school, and you wouldn’t have to drive them? Do you admire cities like New York, with its miles of city bike lanes, or Paris, with its 20,000 bikes to rent? Do you hate the fact that you need to drive your bike to a good trail? Would you like to live in a city that is built for people, not cars?

On June 13, Gil Peñalosa will show us how! Mr. Peñalosa is the executive director of 8-80 Cities, and a founder of the famous Bogotá, Colombia Ciclovia event. He is an internationally renowned livable city expert dedicated to the transformation of cities into places where people can walk, bike, access public transit and visit vibrant parks and public places. What does 8-80 Cities stand for? Cities which are accessible to everyone, from 8 to 80 years old.

We’ll have some local experts on hand to answer any questions you have that are particular to Pittsburgh. They include Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike Pittsurgh; Robert Hampshire, assistant professor of Operations Research and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University;Lynn Heckman, assistant director of Transportation Initiatives, Allegheny County Economic Development; Patrick Roberts, principal transportation planner for the City of Pittsburgh, and Darija Wiswell with Allegheny County’s Health Department.

Missed this event? Catch the full video here or the short version here.

Pittsburgh’s public school system is changing rapidly. Over the past few years the system has downsized and collaborations have emerged. Reform efforts are underway that focus on the challenges in providing an equitable education for all students. Discussions are heated and sometimes polarized and problems persist. Do all students have equal access to educational opportunities? Is the Pittsburgh Promise reaching the students who need it most? Are efforts to reduce the achievement gap working?

At our May 25 cityLIVE!, our panelists will address these issues and other goals for equitable education in the Pittsburgh Public School system. Our panelists will include Robert Parris Moses who founded the Algebra Project, which uses mathematics as an organizing tool to guarantee quality public school education for all students. In 2000, Dr. Moses received the Heinz Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his efforts to make math instruction available to children of all backgrounds. Carey Harris is the Executive Director of A+ Schools, an independent advocate for improvement in public education, and Ralph Bangs is Associate Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems in the School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh. The event will be moderated by Mark Lewis, President and CEO of the POISE Foundation, which funds organisations that provide services to Pittsburgh’s African American community.